South Africa will be looking to Simon Harmer to maintain his good form and break the West Indies resistance.

Trailing by four runs and two wickets down, the West Indies are planning a stubborn rear-guard action.

The batting hero of the day, AB de Villiers, whose 148 underpinned the Proteas total of 421 , believes that a target of 200 would be achievable, but tough, and anything over that would be dangerous.

The Newlands surface is getting more difficult and is known to deteriorate on the final two days of a Test. ‘If you get in, it gets a bit easier,’ said De Villiers. ‘There are some cracks, a couple keep low and the spinner is in the game. There is more than enough for bowlers to work with.

‘We know the game will speed up a bit now. We’re hoping we can start really well tomorrow,’ he added. ‘Simon Harmer will be really important for us. We’ll be looking to him not only to do a holding job but also as a strike bowler.’

Harmer had a dream debut on day one, taking three big wickets for 67, and his off-spin will become more effective as the surface wears.

The West Indies manager Richie Richardson believes that if his men could push on, they could cause a massive upset.

He acknowledged there had been batting collapses before, but, he said, ‘You can’t compete thinking about the negatives. It’s important for two of our batsmen to get in and get centuries. South Africa are going to have to bat last on this wicket.’

‘We’ve shown quite a bit of improvement from the first Test match and that’s what we asked for,’ Richardson said. ‘We’ve seen the team playing better and better. We’ve got to learn to dig in as early as possible. We had a bad start but we’re happy with the progress we’ve made.”

‘We have to work on turning those 40s and 50s into big hundreds. A lot of the players are young and inexperienced but they have the potential,’ he said.

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